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Phantom From Space

From IMDb:
An alien being lands in Santa Monica. Killing two people who attacked him due to the menacing appearance of his spacesuit, the creature takes it off while being pursued by government authorities, revealing himself to be invisible

Reviews

I watched this just to see how someone could reveal themself to be invisible.

Good for a laugh

Reviewer:picfixer -
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February 2, 2010 Subject:
We can see right through you.

A flying saucer (unseen) makes a wrong turn at Albuquerque, and crashes near L.A.. This is how we find out that in 1953 it only took a single prop (a pretend space helmet) to make a science fiction movie - but of course, not a very good one. Nevertheless it does have a coherent plot - but once again, not a very good one. The most that can be said for the acting is it isn't atrocious. (The voiceless, invisible alien is outstanding!) The special effects are smile provoking, and there even are unintentionally hilarious moments during two foot chases of the alien. All things considered, it's hard to totally put down this underachieving, almost folksy little movie, since everyone associated with it seems to have tried their best under micro-budget conditions. The bottom line is I'm not sorry I watched it, but a repeat is unlikely. CAST NOTES: You might notice three vaguely familiar faces in this film: Character actor Rudolph Anders (Dr. Wyatt) made 104 film and TV appearances between 1932 and 1968, often as a scientist or Nazi. James Seay (Maj. Andrews) appeared in 195 film and TV productions, usually as a military man or other official type. Noreen Nash (Barbara Randall) had a limited career, mostly in television, that lasted until 1960.

ita a good 50s scifi movie on a low budget.i also agree with everything drdee51 said! it was interesting & yeah ive seen worse movies 2. you have to look at this in the era it was made in, little technology n all! you can't judge this movie by todays standards. its a fun flick to watch late at night!

Sorry, drdee51, but J.F. is right -- the cop lights a cig at the end and throws the match where the body was. Can't agree with him that it's that bad though. It's a pretty solid B grade 50's S.F. flick. (Okay, maybe B-)

Sure they use lots of stock military footage to set the stage but that was S.O.P. then. And sure it's way too talkie but it's good-sense talk that's earnestly trying to solve an odd mystery. Dialog compares well to some much higher grade movies like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and It Came From Outer Space which sometimes descend into the most dreadful drivel. Here the scientists are actually pretty scientific, the cop genuinely investigative, the reporter -- (well, okay, the reporter's a typical cliched pain in the butt.)

Besides, the special effects budget was probably about $23.50 and they couldn't jump right into the good stuff or they'd have only a 10 minute movie. They tried first to raise the sense of mystery -- pretty successfully, I think. There's very little that's outright laughable in this movie, as with many of the stinkers of the time.

All in all, I'd take it, a cuddly girl, and a bowl of hot popcorn as a pleasant way to pass a rainy Saturday afternoon.

I agree with drdee51, the fact that we don't know where the alien comes from helps the story. In fact it does not matter where he is from or why he is here... he is not like us and he has caused the deaths of at least two people and ultimately he lost his own life by coming here. It is a nice little sci-fi treat.
I have seen far worst films.

This film is, of course, made on a low budget. This alone may alienate viewers from the current generation. However, this film gives evidence to the fact that you do not need a big budget and meaningless fancy special effects to make a good film whose only goal is to tell you a good concrete story. In this film, we have an alien who we ultimately discover has crashed on this planet. He did not come here to attack us. Where he is from is not explained nor is that necessary to know for the story. In fact, it helps the story by accenting the xenophobia of the Earth people he encounters as he wonders around trying to solve his problem of being marooned here. The poor guy just wants to get rescued by his own folks and get the hell out of here. The Earth people chase him, attack him and assume he is up to no good. Now, the Earther's fear is stimulated by his killing some folks who attacked him first and his spacesuit is causing some annoying disturbances. The ending is sad in that the poor guy dies due to running out of air he can breathe as the Earth folks stand there looking at him feeling mighty foolish for what they have done.
PS- No one flicks a cigarette butt on his corpse.

Reviewer:jazzfan -
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March 26, 2008 Subject:
Am I The Only One Having Trouble Downloading This?

My gripe with this film is that it quickly establishes some interesting questions and then leaves them unanswered. So, at the end, I had no idea where this alien was from, for what reason he was attacking earth, or why he was launching the attack on his own. Either poor scriptwriting or my attention wandered.

For those who liked this film, the same director's Killers From Space is also available on archive.org.

In this very low budget film, a close encounter story is presented as if it were based on actual police, military and federal reports. The alien loses his ship, kills two men, maybe starts an oil field fire, fails in his attempts to communicate, runs around an observatory complex a lot and dies leaving no proof of being here. A wasted effort on his part. A unimaginative effort by the film makers. No Mulder and Scully to make it interesting.

I downloaded the mpeg1 file. Audio and video are good.

Reviewer:J.F. -
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December 14, 2006 Subject:
not the best of the worst

The last scene in this movie says it all,.. where one of the charachters lights up a cigerette and chucks the match at the 'creature' they just killed--as if to say--thank the universe this movie is finished!